Tradition

FRIENDS has quickened the pulse of the inner city Richmond neighborhoods it serves, and the quality of its staff has been critical to its success.

According to Wallace Stettinius, retired CEO of Cadmus Communications and former FRIENDS board member, “We live in a world that creates celebrities. They get the press. But, behind them are everyday people working in the vineyard.”

Stettinius says, it is the “rock solid integrity” of FRIENDS’ executive director John C. Purnell, Jr. that has “built the agency into a model agency, highly respected across a broad spectrum of people in the community and in business.”

Executive Director since 1970
Under the leadership of John C. Purnell, Jr., FRIENDS has 337 licensed childcare spaces, operates three community based child and family centers, has  staff of 62 associates and a $3.3 million annual budget.

John C. Purnell, Jr. has been executive director of FRIENDS Association for Children since April 1970.  He was born in Richmond, Virginia, is a graduate of Hampton University and earned graduate degrees in social work and public administration from Virginia Commonwealth University.

He serves on the Board of Directors of Christian Children’s Fund and the selection committee of the Stettinius Fund for Nonprofit Leadership. He is a past trustee of the Cadmus Communications Corporation Board of Directors, and a past member and chairman of the Sheltering Arms Hospital Board of Directors.  He is a member of the Astoria Beneficial Club and the Rotary Club of Richmond.

The Central Virginia Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers named him Social Worker of the Year in 1968, and he received the 1996 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Virginia Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.

He is also the recipient of the Alpha Beta Boule’s 1993 Oliver W. Hill Citizenship Award, received the Leadership Metro Richmond’s Areta Award in 2002 and was named Black Administrator of the Year by the Black Administrators in Child Welfare in 2004.

John C. Purnell, Jr. with the children at FRIENDS.